Wale
Attention Deficit
(Allido, 2009)

Wale is the reigning champ of inventive mixtapes. In 2007, his 100 Miles and Running was welcomed with wide acclaim. One standout track was “Work”, a four-minute verse set to the Beatles‘ “Hey Bulldog” and the “Apache” beat. And in 2008, Wale’s Mixtape About Nothing set the bar even higher. It was chock full of well-timed Seinfeld interludes, it contained a humorous aping of Seinfeld’s comedic stylings—”What’s the deal with mixtapes?”—and Julia Louis-Dreyfus endorsed the record on one track. Everyone DL’ed The Mixtape About Nothing and then sat on their hands for a year waiting for a proper album.

With mixtapes, there’s a greater freedom to sample popular works—no way you’re actually clearing “Hey Bulldog” for sample use on an album. And there’s no Seinfeld cameo on Attention Deficit. But Wale still brings a bevy of sounds and support with a range of voices and producers: Bun B and Gucci Mane offer verses. K’naan, a Somali-Canadian poet who could recite Rakim lyrics before he could speak English, brings a completely different cadence to the party with his verse on “TV in the Radio.” “Pretty Girls” features a strong tenor hook by Weensey, a member of DC’s Backyard Band, who is sampled on the song. Elsewhere, hooks are offered by Lady Gaga and Pharrell.

Maybe there are too many voices and producers. Wale spends most of his mic time announcing himself, reciting his credentials, and asserting that other rappers just don’t hack it—maybe he feels crowded. On “Mirrors”, he raps, “Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who the realest of ‘em all? / That ain’t hard, swear to God / These niggas ain’t real at all.” He didn’t say he was the realest, not on the hook at least, but in his first verse, he tells the mirror, “[I] feel like the only rapper that look at you with no trouble.” For an album called Attention Deficit, Wale has a hard time focusing on anything but himself.

“Chillin’”, with assistance from the illustrious Lady Gaga, is a song about being the center of attention: “Eyes all sticky like honey on bees,” sings Gaga, overstating the case with a questionable metaphor (only a sloppy motherfuckin’ bee gets stuck in his own product). Eyes unstuck, when Wale looks outward, the record gets tangled up in contradictions: The Pharrell-produced party jam “Let It Loose” features Pharrell glibly crooning, “All the girls really want is fun / Just a place where they can come.” This sentiment is followed up by the cautionary tale “90210″, a Mark Ronson-produced joint that turns an innocent riff into a scary club joint with gentle crescendos. This is the kind of danceably rhetorical stance that Dizzee Rascal took on “Jezebel” and the Streets took on “Weak Become Heroes.” “Let It Loose” and “90210″ might have been stacked together for a purposeful juxtaposition, but there doesn’t seem to be any resolution: One song revels in women caught up in evening temptations; the other warns women about them.

“Shades” sounds like a positive song about race. On the chorus, Chrisette Michele croons “Shade doesn’t matter, heart makes the lover,” before checking off “caramel, coffee grounds, chocolate,” etc. But Wale begins this open-minded song with the unbelievably inconsiderate, “Chip on my shoulder / Big enough to feed Cambodia.” No room for banana peel, saffron, and mustard seed on that list of shades? “Prescription” is a clear- and near-sighted description of hip-hop circa ’09. It begins with a muffled thump and hit, and lulls you toward hypnagogia with soul flute and xylophone. The soft sound keeps you sedated while Wale slips you a lyrical rufie: “I breathe life in the game, they are Kevorkian;” “I am hip-hop, past, present, and the future.” The alpha and the omega! And he claims that he was “appointed” this savior’s mantle. Well, that’s fine. But making Jesus-like comparisons at the end of a debut is beyond suspect. John Lennon waited until he had a stack of platinum records to venture such a comparison, and even that didn’t go well.

Attention Deficit runs into considerable trouble in the language department, but musically there is little to complain about. This is a funky, soul-driven record that will make your feet move even if your brain is feeling mushy.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

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